Communicating Arts - Main Web SiteSource: Woolridge, Mike. "Funds to Boost Somalia Security." BBC News, April 23, 2009: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8013712.stm
For a look back and comparison of condition and themes, this from the International Crisis Group (ICG) might be helpful: "Counter-Terrorism in Somalia: Losing Hearts and Minds?" Africa Report No. 95, July 11, 2005: http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=3555.
The ICG report came out prior to the installation of former Somali President Yusuf's administration and the sweeping of the Islamic Courts Union from power by the Ethiopian Army. One sentence may signal how Somalis experienced American meddling at that point: " Few Somalis believe there are terrorists in their country, and many regard the American-led war on terrorism as an assault on Islam."
Fast-forward about two years:
The formation of the opposition Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia (ARS) on September 12 brought together Islamist chiefs, former senior TFG leaders and diaspora representatives. The ARS is Islamist-dominated, with ICU leader Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed its chairman, and with ICU members or diaspora sympathizers in all strategic posts. The ARS aims to unify the armed opposition, claiming its first direct responsibility for an attack on a Mogadishu police station last month (Soomaalinews.com, September 30). Yet, the long-running violence preceding that attack clearly indicates that they are only one of many factions. There are notable absences in the ARS leadership, especially the failure to include leaders of the radical Shabaab militia.
Source: Irving, Sydney. "Splits Developing in Somali Insurgency." Terrorism Focus 4:32, The Jamestown Foundation, October 10, 2007: http://www.jamestown.org/single/?no_cache=1&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=4445
That "failure to include leaders of the radical Shabaab militia" would seem to have proven no failure at all but rather a part of the vision plan held in President Ahmed's head as he went about building a coalition capable of obtaining a governing position in Mogadishu. In effect, Ahmed's efforts have gotten former President Yusuf to quit his job (around December 2008), the Ethiopian Army to pull its forces back to its borders (although reports or rumors of presence abound), and al-Shabaab to stand as a distinct renegade force.
That's pretty good chess, and on top of it, President Ahmed's would seem to be producing international backing and funding for the military defeat of al-Shabaab.
We will soon see if the new government can find the insurgents and IED's better than the old one; in that it has come out of that same struggle, it well may do that.
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